Web development is essential to the success of your online marketing and branding campaigns. But it requires you to invest limited resources, and its success (or failure) can have lasting impacts on your law firm’s bottom line. The importance of testing in web development is overlooked by many of today’s law firms. Testing can help you avoid costly mistakes and get the most out of your web development efforts.
It lets you develop the right strategies to address issues that may arise in the future. As your online presence grows, so will the need for ongoing testing and maintenance of your site’s design.
Testing Your Web Development Over Time
Testing the design of your website is an ongoing process. Many law firms only test their websites during the initial development phase and then assume that everything is in order.
But testing isn’t a “set it and forget it” strategy. Over time, website problems cause users to become dissatisfied, and new visitors can be left with a bad first impression and never return.
These and other factors negatively impact your website’s rankings in the search engine results pages. They hurt your brand’s reputation and the perceived value of your legal services.
Testing your site’s loading speed, navigation, responsive design, and other elements improves its performance, leads to higher rankings, and increases the conversion rates of your site’s pages.
Benefits of Testing in Web Development
A complete test of your site’s design should be implemented before its initial launch or redesign. This lets you identify elements that aren’t working so that they can be addressed as quickly as possible with minimal disruption.
This is especially true for law firms that are anticipating a high level of traffic from marketing campaigns, media coverage, and other factors. Your web server’s ability to handle high levels of traffic reduces any performance risks.
Single-user testing may not always let you identify these risks, and understanding how to implement the right testing protocols prevents the impacts they have on your website’s performance.
Testing optimizes your site’s performance, security, and stability, and its applications can be improved to ensure the success of your website.
Testing Your Web Development
The testing phase will be unique to the needs of your law firm. The metrics used to test the performance of any website must align with the business objectives of your law firm.
Testing should evaluate your site’s performance under different conditions and scenarios. Stress testing places your website’s server under heavy traffic loads to ensure that it can maintain its performance when facing sudden spikes in traffic.
Testing the load times for your site’s pages enhances the user experience of your site. Confirming your server’s capacity for scaling prevents common issues that today’s small and large businesses face.
Summary reports from your testing give your web development team a “big picture” view of your website and its performance issues.
There are many testing tools available, and you should choose one that provides the information you need when testing your website’s design.
A comprehensive testing phase ensures the success of your website and delivers the highest level of value to your prospective clients.
Let us know what testing strategies have given you the best results. Are you struggling with improving your website’s performance? Include your questions in the comments below.
The testing phase can increase the returns you achieve from investing in your law firm’s website development. More importantly, it provides a better experience for the users who will ultimately become your paying clients.
